[gentoo-gwn] Gentoo Weekly Newsletter -- Volume 2, Issue 7

[Kurt Lieber]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gentoo Weekly Newsletter
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/current.xml
This is the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter for the week of February 17th, 2003.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
==============
1. Gentoo News
==============
  
Summary
-------

 * Catch Gentoo Zetagrid fever 
 * New rsync mirrors 
 * Gnome 2.2 now in Portage 
    
Catch Gentoo Zetagrid Fever
---------------------------
  
We've reported[1] on the Zetagrid[2] project before. Recently, however, 
the GLUE team broke the top 100 producers list[3] and, as of press time, 
currently ranks 86th[4] on the list. Now, thanks to an ebuild in Portage, 
along with a sample configuration file[5] from Michael's zetagrid site[6], 
it's even easier for Gentoo users to donate their spare CPU cycles to the 
GLUE team and help increase the chances of winning part of the $1,000,000 
prize. 

 1. http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20030106-newsletter.xml#doc_chap4
 2. http://zetagrid.net
 3. http://www.zetagrid.net/servlet/service/statistic
 4. http://www.zetagrid.net/servlet/service/producers?user=Michael+Imhof
 5. http://cvs.gentoo.org/~tantive/zeta.cfg
 6. http://cvs.gentoo.org/~tantive/
    
New rsync mirrors.
------------------
  
After our recent report[7] on the Gentoo mirror slowdowns, several Gentoo 
users stepped forward with offers to set up new Gentoo Linux mirrors, both 
for the Portage tree, as well as the source packages. The result has been 
a significant increase in the number of download mirrors[8] available to 
the Gentoo community.

 7. 
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20030203-newsletter.xml#doc_chap1_sect3
 8. http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/mirrors.xml
 
Guidelines are available for users who wish to set up public mirrors to 
help the Gentoo Linux project, including instructions for setting up 
rsync[9] mirrors, which just mirror the Portage tree as well as 
instructions for setting up source[10] mirrors, which mirror the actual 
source tarballs of the various packages contained within Portage. 

 9. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/rsync.xml
 10. http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/source_mirrors.xml
    
GNOME 2.2 now in Portage
------------------------
  
GNOME 2.2 ebuilds were released to the Gentoo community early last week 
and Gentoo GNOME users everywhere rejoiced at the new features like 
multihead support[11], unified theming[12] and the official inclusion of 
the Metacity window manager[13]. A complete list of features and changes 
can be found in the GNOME 2.2 release notes[14]. 

 11. http://www.gnome.org/start/2.2/notes/rnmultihead.html
 12. http://www.gnome.org/start/2.2/notes/rnthemes.html
 13. http://www.gnome.org/start/2.2/notes/rnwm.html
 14. http://www.gnome.org/start/2.2/notes/
    
==================
2. Gentoo Security
==================
  
Summary
-------

 * GLSA 
 * New Security Bug Reports 
    
GLSA
----
  
There were no new security alerts issued in the past week.
    
New Security Bug Reports
------------------------
  
The following new security-related bug reports were submitted to the 
bugzilla database this week: 

 * net-mail/w3m[15] 
 * syslinux 2.02[16] 

 15. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15684
 16. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15652
    
=================================
3. Featured Developer of the Week
=================================
  
Dan Armak
 
There's been much rejoicing among KDE users lately because of the release 
of KDE 3.1, and this week we feature one of the developers responsible for 
bringing it to Gentoo:  Dan Armak[17], KDE team leader. Dan began using 
Gentoo back when you had to scroll halfway down a list of more than a 
hundred minor and specialized distros to even see it mentioned anywhere, 
and seeing that it was the kind of power-user distro he was looking for, 
he started using it and writing ebuilds for some important apps he needed, 
like LyX. It was around this time that Dan came up with the idea for CVS 
ebuilds and eclasses in general and, before he knew it, got invited to 
become a developer. Dan wrote the KDE eclasses(Dan shudders at the thought 
of the old KDE ebuilds, which contained most of the code that the KDE 
eclasses do today) and the cvs.eclass, and now maintains both. Thanks to 
these eclasses Dan doesn't have to do too much work with miscellaneous KDE 
packages (unless there's a bug in the source that they need to fix) so 
kde-base (along with koffice and kdevelop) takes up most of Dan and the 
other KDE maintainers' time. 

 17. danarmak@g.o
 
Besides KDE, some of Dan's favorite pieces of software include mc, Lyx (a 
front-end to LaTeX), bash, and epsxe. His Toshiba laptop is out for 
repairs at the moment, but he's borrowing a nice Athlon with lots of RAM 
from a friend, as well as a panoply of ancient boxen for parts and 
doorstops. Dan lives in Matan, a smallish town in Israel, and is a student 
- at Ami Asaf high school during the day and at the Open University in the 
afternoon. Next year, he'll be going into the army, but hopes to find a 
nice job in the tech/computers unit of the IDF, where he'll be free to 
preach Gentoo. His hobbies include Squaresoft RPGs, reading, writing, 
observing Interesting People, and OSS evangelism toward his friends. 
   
=========================
4. Heard In The Community
=========================
  
Web Forums
----------
  
New powerbooks and Gentoo PPC
 
Apple Computers has whetted the appetite of its fans with the new 12 and 
17 inch Powerbooks last month, and now they're finally shipping all over 
the place. Gentoo PPC users aren't any less excited, they have begun 
gathering their troops to install Linux as soon as their new gadgets 
arrive in the mail. After some initial skepticism about kernel support for 
the new hardware it seems like a quick solution may be available after 
all: 
 
 * 12" Powerbook[18] 
 * new 17 inch powerbooks wow[19] 

 18. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=34909
 19. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=29173
 
Bob the Ebuilder
 
There have been several attempts by Gentoo parents to gather information 
about Linux software for younger children in the past. A few notoriously 
addictive games and educational applications for Linux have always been 
available as ebuilds, but many other alternatives to the huge Windows 
market for kiddie progs are still out there waiting to be Gentooified. And 
last week, a collective "Bob the Ebuilder" initiative has come forth that 
promises to catch up quickly with some of the things missing in Portage. 
The official thread to post requests, announce ebuilds checked into 
bugs.gentoo.org, and feedback from beta testers in the age bracket 3-10 is 
here: 
 
 * Gentoo for children (request for ebuilders)[20] 

 20. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=13413
 
Gentoo Musicians
 
Linux user profiles are as varied as in any other random group of people. 
Just because we happen to use the same operating system doesn't mean 
necessarily that we have anything else in common. As it turns out, some 
people do, though: a planetary convention of musicians using Gentoo Linux 
has built up in the Forums, thrown together by coincidence, united in 
their effort to come up with something special. One of the possible 
results of this thread (besides mentions of the most obscure software 
names ever) may well be a Gentoone on the LiveCD, something to hum along 
during installation: 
 
 * Gentoo Musicians[21] 

 21. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=21805
 
Thirty Minutes...
 
...is all it takes to write an ebuild for a missing window manager in 
Gentoo. What started as an innocent question about Wing's Desktop Manager 
and why it wasn't available as an ebuild, has become a fine example of how 
someone with the right skill set and half an hour of spare time on their 
hands can remedy that on the spot. Have a look at this thread: 
 
 * why is there no wdm ebuild?[22] 
 
 22. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=35189
 
gentoo-user
-----------

'gcc: command not found'
 
A lot of talk about gcc not being available to the system was happening on 
gentoo-user this week. One thread entitled 'distcc'[23] began with the 
author's solution to the 'gcc: command not found' problem. The root of the 
issue is caused by attempting to invoke gcc in a shell where /etc/profile 
isn't being sourced. Three unique solutions were offered within this 
thread alone! Nick Jones contributed the simplest one, being 'su -'. A 
monumental strength and joy of Gentoo is the encouragement of 
customization, thus choose whichever soltuion best fits your needs. 

 23. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-user&m=104482994004245&w=2
 
All kinds of tars make up the pit
 
Brett Holcomb, a gentoo-user veteran, questioned[24] whether Gentoo's 
"tar" command was a modified version of the one on the GNU site. Tar is 
the standard *nix utility for compressing all kinds of data into a single 
file called an archive. Interesting enough, the responses made clear that 
the tar command does vary from distro to distro. The switches, especially 
dealing with bzip2 and gzip, will often vary depending on the distro's 
compile of the tar sources. This shouldn't present itself as a problem as 
it is easily worked around through the use of pipes and standalone 
utilities. 

 24. http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gentoo-user&m=104470482011940&w=2

gentoo-dev
----------
  
ProPolice enabled gcc/gentoo.
 
Matt Rickard has implemented[25] a ProPolice[26] patched GCC ebuild. He 
says[27]: "This patch will build stack-smashing protection into your code 
at compile time. This is an excellent security measure -- one that has 
just recently been implemented in OpenBSD-current. It can be enabled 
explicitly through the CFLAG -fstack-protector or turned on by default 
with a separate patch." Dylan Carlson pointed out that there is a bug[28] 
filed regarding this topic.

 25. http://frogger974.homelinux.org/gentoo_propolice.html
 26. http://www.trl.ibm.com/projects/security/ssp/
 27. http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.devel/6984
 28. http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13610
    
=======================
5. Gentoo International
=======================
  
Gentoo Vienna Meeting
 
Meetings of the Austrian branch of Gentooism have started happening in 
July last year, but sort of went out of fashion. Last week, the official 
Viennese Gentoo users[29] coordination thread has started an attempt to 
revive the tradition and is making plans for the next gathering. It'll be 
soon, but a date hasn't been fixed yet, so you can still make your 
preferences heard. 

 29. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=9161
 
Pinguino Papua
 
tirantloblanc[30] has traced the official Spanish name for the Gentoo 
penguin, and discovered that flocks of this fastest swimmer among birds 
are living in the southernmost parts of Chile. The Pinguino Papua's 
largest colonies, however, live on the Falk^H^H^H^HMalvinas islands off 
the coast of Argentina. Which presumably makes them UK citizens, but as an 
open source bird rather unlikely to become a sufficient reason for 
anything more serious than a flame war... 

 30. http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=35510
   
================
6. Portage Watch
================
  
The following stable packages were added to portage this week
-------------------------------------------------------------
  
Because of the pending release of 1.4_final, the Portage tree is currently 
frozen. As such, no new stable packages were introduced to Portage this 
week 
    
Updates to notable packages
---------------------------

 * gnome-base/gnome - gnome-2.2-r1.ebuild;  
 * sys-kernel/* - ac-sources-2.4.21_pre4-r3.ebuild; 
   ac-sources-2.4.21_pre4-r4.ebuild; ck-sources-2.4.20-r3.ebuild; 
   development-sources-2.5.60-r1.ebuild; development-sources-2.5.60.ebuild; 
   hppa-sources-2.4.20_p23.ebuild; hppa-sources-2.4.20_p24.ebuild; 
   hppa-sources-2.4.20_p26.ebuild; mjc-sources-2.5.59-r1.ebuild; 
   ppc-sources-2.4.20-r3.ebuild; rsbac-sources-2.4.20.ebuild; 
   wolk-sources-4.0_pre10.ebuild;  
 * dev-php/php - php-4.3.0-r3.ebuild; php-4.3.0-r4.ebuild;  
 * app-admin/gentoolkit - gentoolkit-0.1.18-r1.ebuild; 
   gentoolkit-0.1.18.ebuild;  
 
===========
7. Bugzilla
===========
  
Summary
-------
  
 * Statistics 
 * Closed Bug Ranking 
 * New Bug Rankings 
    
Statistics
----------
  
The Gentoo community uses Bugzilla (bugs.gentoo.org[31]) to record and 
track bugs, notifications, suggestions and other interactions with the 
development team. In the last 7 days, activity on the site has resulted 
in: 
 
 * 270 new bugs this week 
 * 191 bugs closed this week 
 * 1680 total bugs currently marked 'new' 
 * 574 total bugs curently assigned to developers 
 * 51 bugs that were previously closed have been reopened. 
 
There are currently 2305 bugs open in bugzilla. Of these: 45 are labelled 
'blocker', 82 are labelled 'critical', and 160 are labelled 'major'. 

 31. http://bugs.gentoo.org
    
Closed Bug Rankings
-------------------
  
The developers and teams who have closed the most bugs this week are: 
 
 * Seemant Kulleen[32], with 33 closed bugs[33] 
 * The KDE Team[34], with 18 closed bugs[35] 
 * Nick Hadaway[36], with 15 closed bugs[37] 
 * Seth Chandler[38], with 12 closed bugs[39] 
 * M. Holzer[40], with 11 closed bugs[41] 

 32. seemant@g.o
 33. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&resolution=FIXED&assi
gned_to=seemant%40gentoo.org
 34. kde@g.o
 35. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&resolution=FIXED&assi
gned_to=kde%40gentoo.org
 36. raker@g.o
 37. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&resolution=FIXED&assi
gned_to=raker%40gentoo.org
 38. sethbc@g.o
 39. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&resolution=FIXED&assi
gned_to=sethbc%40gentoo.org
 40. mholzer@g.o
 41. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=RESOLVED&bug_status=CLOSED&ch
field=bug_status&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&resolution=FIXED&assi
gned_to=mholzer%40gentoo.org
    
New Bug Rankings
----------------
  
The developers and teams who have been assigned the most new bugs this 
week are: 
 
 * Martin Schlemmer[42], with 17 new bugs[43] 
 * The Gnome Team[44], with 16 new bugs[45] 
 * Nicholas Jones[46], with 14 new bugs[47] 
 * Ryan Phillips[48], with 14 new bugs[49] 
 * Seemant Kulleen[50], with 14 new bugs[51] 

 42. azarah@g.o
 43. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&=&a
ssigned_to=azarah%40gentoo.org
 44. gnome@g.o
 45. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&=&a
ssigned_to=gnome%40gentoo.org
 46. carpaski@g.o
 47. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&=&a
ssigned_to=carpaski%40gentoo.org
 48. rphillips@g.o
 49. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&=&a
ssigned_to=rphillips%40gentoo.org
 50. seemant@g.o
 51. 
http://bugs.gentoo.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_s
tatus=REOPENED&chfield=assigned_to&chfieldfrom=2003-02-08&chfieldto=Now&=&a
ssigned_to=seemant%40gentoo.org
    
==================
8. Tips and Tricks
==================
  
Bash Commands and Tricks
 
Just about all Gentoo user make use of the command line - this week 
focuses on some little-known navigation commands that may make your life 
easier. 
 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1:                                                       |
| Bash Key Combinations                                                   |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                         |
|Alt+B   Go back one word                                                 |
|Alt+F   Go forth one word                                                |
|Ctrl+K  Delete everything from the cursor to the end of the line         |
|Ctrl+U  Delete everything from the cursor to the beginning of the line   |
|Ctrl+Y  Paste deleted characters at the current position                 |
|Ctrl+H  Delete one character                                             |
|Ctrl+L  Clean screen                                                     |
|Ctrl+P  Go to the previous history entry                                 |
|Ctrl+N  Go to the next history entry                                     |
|                                                                         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Also you can use !word to re-execute the last command beginning with 
"word". 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1:                                                       |
| Using !word                                                             |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                         |
|$ gcc -o test test.c                                                     |
|$ !gcc                                                                   |
|gcc -o test test.c                                                       |
|$                                                                        |
|                                                                         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
Ever get tired of typing long directory names? Try using the directory 
stack with the commands pushd, popd, and dirs. THe directory stack allows 
you to keep a list of directories and navigate between them. 
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Code Listing 8.1:                                                       |
| The directory stack                                                     |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|                                                                         |
|pushd adds a directory                                                   |
|~:$ pushd /usr/portage                                                   |
|dirs lists all directories on the stack                                  |
|~:$ dirs                                                                 |
|/usr/portage ~                                                           |
|And popd removes the top entry and cd's to that directory                |
|~:$ popd                                                                 |
|/usr/portage:$                                                           |
|                                                                         |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 
The idea for this weeks tip came from Pavel Tcholakov and was submitted to 
the GWN feedback list. 
   
==========================
9. Moves, Adds and Changes
==========================
  
Moves
-----
  
The following developers recently left the Gentoo team: 
 
 * none this week 
    
Adds
----
  
The following developers recently joined the Gentoo team: 
 
 * Guy Martin (GMSoft) -- Gentoo/HPPA 
 * Graham Forest (vladimir) -- Gentoo/PPC 
 * Bartosch Pixa (DarkSpecter) -- Gentoo/PPC 
    
Changes
-------
  
The following developers recently changed roles within the Gentoo project. 
 * none this week 
    
=====================
10. Contribute to GWN
=====================
  
Interested in contributing to the Gentoo Weekly Newsletter? Send us an 
email[52].

 52. gwn-feedback@g.o
   
================
11. GWN Feedback
================
  
Please send us your feedback[53] and help make GWN better.

 53. gwn-feedback@g.o
   
===================
12. Other Languages
===================
  
The Gentoo Weekly Newsletter is also available in the following languages:
 
 * Dutch 
 * English 
 * German 
 * French 
 * Japanese 
 * Italian 
 * Portuguese (Brazil) 
 * Portuguese (Portugal) 
 * Spanish 
  
Kurt Lieber <klieber@g.o> - Editor
AJ Armstrong <aja@×××××××××××××.com> - Contributor
Brice Burgess <nesta@×××××××.net> - Contributor
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <carlos@g.o> - Contributor
Rafael Cordones Marcos <rcm@×××××××.net> - Contributor
David Narayan <david@×××××××.net> - Contributor
Ulrich Plate <plate@g.o> - Contributor
Peter Sharp <mail@××××××××××××××.net> - Contributor
Mathy Vanvoorden <matje@×××××××.be> - Dutch Translation
Tom Van Laerhoven <tom.vanlaerhoven@××××××.be> - Dutch Translation
Roel Adriaans <roel@××××××××.cx> - Dutch Translation
Peter Dijkstra <phj.dijkstra@××××.nl> - Dutch Translation
Nicolas Ledez <nicolas.ledez@××××.fr> - French Translation
Guillaume Plessis <gui@×××××××××.com> - French Translation
Eric St-Georges <thevedge@××××××××.net> - French Translation
John Berry <anfini@××××.fr> - French Translation
Martin Prieto <riverdale@×××××××××.org> - French Translation
Michael Kohl <citizen428@g.o> - German Translation
Steffen Lassahn <madeagle@g.o> - German Translation
Matthias F. Brandstetter <haim@g.o> - German Translation
Thomas Raschbacher <lordvan@g.o> - German Translation
Marco Mascherpa <mush@××××××.net> - Italian Translation
Claudio Merloni <paper@×××××××.it> - Italian Translation
Daniel Ketel <kage-chan@g.o> - Japanese Translation
Yoshiaki Hagihara <hagi@×××.com> - Japanese Translation
Andy Hunne <andy@×××××××××.com> - Japanese Translation
Yuji Carlos Kosugi <carlos@g.o> - Japanese Translation
Yasunori Fukudome <yasunori@××××××××××××××××.uk> - Japanese Translation
Ventura Barbeiro <venturasbarbeiro@××××××.br> - Portuguese (Brazil) 
Translation
Bruno Ferreira <blueroom@××××××××××××.net> - Portuguese (Portugal) 
Translation
Gustavo Felisberto <gustavo@××××××××××.net> - Portuguese (Portugal) 
Translation
Ricardo Jorge Louro <rjlouro@×××××××.org> - Portuguese (Portugal) 
Translation
Lanark <lanark@××××××××××.ar> - Spanish Translation
Rafael Cordones Marcos <rcm@×××××××.net> - Spanish Translation
Julio Castillo <julio@×××××××××××××.com> - Spanish Translation
Sergio Gómez <s3r@××××××××××××.ar> - Spanish Translation
Pablo Pita Leira <pablo.leira@×××××××××.com> - Spanish Translation
Carlos Castillo <carlos@×××××××××××××.com> - Spanish Translation
Tirant <tirant@×××××.net> - Spanish Translation
Jaime Freire <jfreire@××.com> - Spanish Translation
Lucas Sallovitz <krusty_ar@×××××.com> - Spanish Translation